You tell ‘em,!: Who would think that we’d see a rousing speech in favor of gay marriage from a columnist in Salt Lake City. But give Salt Lake Tribune columnist Holly Mullin credit for speaking the truth to an audience that won’t like it. It’s a great big of columnizing:

…The same-sex marriage movement is rolling. It will not be stopped….

We have a blazing civil rights movement here, friends, the first of this budding century. It is strikingly similar to the fight for equality waged by blacks from Reconstruction, through an era of Jim Crow laws and straight on to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It mirrors the efforts by suffragists, who rallied for women’s right to vote at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention but did not gain the franchise for another 72 years, with ratification of the 19th Amendment….

It will happen again. It will happen because recognizing gays and lesbians as full human beings, with a right to equal protection under the Constitution, is just and fair and decent. When a whole class of people is systematically denied the perks of marriage — inheritance rights and Social Security and military survivors benefits to name a few — simply because the majority finds its lifestyle abhorrent or something to fear, it’s high time for a makeover.

Makeovers are what this society does. This is a country strong enough to absorb change and to promote justice. If not, blacks would still be picking cotton. Wives would still be their husbands’ property.

On Wednesday, the Utah Legislature passed a bill re-enforcing the ban on same-sex marriage, and any day it will pass a resolution asking voters to amend the state constitution by defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman only.

A few lawmakers and lobbyists have done a beautiful job at bundling their bigotry in a blanket of religious piety and blathering on about what Jefferson and Madison were thinking 200-plus years ago. This resolution will sail right through. You won’t have time to blink.

In the end, it won’t matter. Utah can take its petty little stand. It may as well put up a picket fence to stop an avalanche.

Same-sex marriage is way beyond one state’s grasp. This is a national movement, a social upheaval. Put your ear to the ground and hear it.

Bravo!

: UPDATE: Even the staid Chicago Tribune is not chocking too hard on the notion that same-sex marriage is a movement. Says its ombudsman, responding in print to a guy who called complaining that a picture of two men kissing revealed the Tribune’s “moral problem:”

Al’s use of the term “moral problem” implies a much more serious judgment than the word “taste” suggests. He sees those of us who make decisions in the Tribune newsroom as having enlisted in a culture war on the side of the forces of darkness and immorality. By running that picture of those two men kissing, we have given the country, the society, a push along a road that ends in moral rack and ruin.

There is an opposite view that sees that picture as a harbinger of the future, a sign of progress toward equal treatment under the law of all people and their personal choices. By these lights, we at the Tribune–and in the newspaper industry generally–have been laggards, too slow in accepting same-sex wedding or commitment announcements, too slow in editorializing in favor of same-sex marriage, child care and other such arrangements.

But the publication of that photo on Monday implies no commitment by the newspaper to either of those views. The fact is that there was–and is–a news story in San Francisco about people involved in what, for better or worse, will be a revolutionary social change. The picture of those two men kissing was news, and its presence in the paper reflected our commitment to clear and responsible communication of that news.

Just remember folks…you may not like WHAT you hear when you put your ear to the ground.
A lot of people out here really do not care a damn bit about what two gay guys or gals do in their bedrooms…so please stop trying so hard to MAKE us care.

http://greeblie.com/theyeti TheYeti

I feel the same way about left-handed people.A revolution is coming to throw off the oppression of right-handed people.

Anonymous

When you finish reading that article it has an arrow to read the previous article…that one is interesting too…its about keeping the firing squad as an execution tool because “lethal injection is painless”.

angell

Why not Salt Lake City–that opens the way for polygamy–we can’t discriminate against Mormoms if they demand 12 wives, can we now? After that we will marry beasts and people.

http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/ Mitch H.

Am I the only one who heard that article in the accents of a Professor Henry Hill? It’s got that certain cadence…

Leland

I’m with Angell. Originally, sexual orientation was just the difference between hetero and homosexual. Then it included subclasses: Transgendered and bisexual. The latter is the first step towards creating a pologamy argument; “I prefer love with a man and a woman at the same time, so society should recognize that love and relationship…”
I expected gay marriage long ago, but those who support it by rewritting definitions as old as recorded history ought to realize the precendence they set.

Tim

There is a difference between the idea of a pairing between two consenting adults, straight or now gay, and formalizing relationships between 3 or more individuals. It’s part of human nature to join with someone else; this right needs to be extended to all adults, not just straights. Polygamists are just greedy. ;-)
But I don’t have a problem with polygamy so long as it’s consenting. I think it’s inherently unstable, but so are a lot of the Vegas drive-thru marriages that happen every day.
Just because critics of gay marriage lack a full understanding or knowledge of human sexuality today and in history (“next thing we’ll be marrying beasts or children!”) doesn’t mean I have to be treated, gay man that I am, as a second-class citizen.
We need to reintroduce the idea of the personal and the private into our society. Gay marriage? Polygamy? It’s really none of your business.

anthony

The specious argument of a slippery slope from gay marriage to bestiality was false when the same reasoning was used with miscegenation. At the moment there aren’t a thousand polygamists lining the streets waiting for the chance to get a marriage certificate. Nor are there siblings or any of the other tired “we can’t discriminate against x” analogies. When we have entire districts of EVERY major city (and quite a few smaller ones too)dedicated to polygamists or whatever, then we can talk about whether they get rights.
It seems to me that the State needs to step out of the way, do it’s job, and leave the question of marriage up to the particular denomination as to whether they want to grant the ceremony.

Leland

Actually, not a city area, just a state called Utah, but don’t let details deride a good red herring. Polygamy is nothing new. It’s been practiced by religions, including Jewish and Christian sects, for thousands of years.
The point is, there is a fundamental change to a concept. When governments sanctioned polygamy in the past, the act of marriage was still between a man and woman, the definition was that a single man was married to many woman, but the wives were not married to each other. A polygamist can use all the same arguments Ms. Mullins makes about civil rights, and in fact, many have.
If the majority must except this for the protected right of the minority, what does the minority propose as a new definition of term “marriage”? I think this is a fair question to be asked. After all, it is a word, and words are used to write our laws.

angell

I just hate the thought of paying widow’s pensions to 12 wives and I can’t quite grasp the concept of Mrs. Beagle and her litter being the sole survivors of Mr. Married a Dog. And don’t forget–we will soon have multi gays or lesbians requesting a group marriage. The more the merrier–why stop at two? That request has already been made in Canada, but present law there did not allow it.

Richard Aubrey

To remind us all:
Those who are most insistent there is no slippery slope are likely to be those most interested in shoving us over it.

Joe Peden

Gays obviously seek to appropriate the sanctity of “marriage” for their own relationships. Why don’t they respect what most[?] heterosexuals take as sanctified in their relationship of marriage and instead build their own sanctity, allowing these heterosexuals their sanctity?
There will be a gigantic backlash against gays, for violating the law, when a process was in place to otherwise decide this issue.
The Civil Rights movement occurred to enforce the [Federal] law. The woman’s suffrage movement did not involve violating the law, by allowing women to vote prior to the 19th Amendment.
I will now oppose gay marriage, although I do not give a shit about who gets married, and wonder why anyone would want to get “legally” married to begin with.
Discriminatory marriage laws can easily be changed to include “civil unions” as equal.
Holy activist action involving confronting the law claims that supporting legal processes is not at least equally holy. I say it is the opposite, that supporting the processes is more holy than violating them, since only the processes can validify laws to begin with, including gay marriage laws, if any.
Destroying the basis for rights in order to establish rights is self-contradictory.
The Gays have just created another “enemy”: Me.

sholls

Gay marriage has become a talking point in Britain as well. On one level one wonders why two guys (or girls) would want to be Mr and Mrs whatever. Why not just carry on just living together? Enough heterosexuals do! But there are issues that need to be resolved concerning gay relationships.
There is an issue concerning inheritance and property rights where the law doesn’t recognise a gay relationship. (Heteros in long term relationships gain property and inheritance rights under common law – even if they’re not married).
Then there are issues about rights within the relationship. I heard about a very sad case where one partner in a gay relationship died in hospital and the survivor had no rights to see the body or anything. In the end it was as much as he could do to find out where the funeral was taking place. Now that

sholls

And just to add. Anyone who thinks recognising same sex relationships will lead to bestiality has lost touch with their humanity.

Joe Peden

Scholls, can we say “living will” and “will”?
This sad case you refer to is most likely a concoction, a typical Liberal tactic, coming at best under the also false Liberal logic that “one case constitutes an epidemic.”
At least the simpleton gay did not have to pay for the funeral.

angell

Bottom line is that your religious views don’t matter–they are wrong–get used to it. I oppose homosexual marriage–but I have no right to–it constitutes hate speech. I’m not cool and enlightened and libertarian enough to have a view that is based strictly on the Bible. I guess a new homosexual version of the Bible will be available soon.http://newsobserver.com/front/story/3348408p-2981944c.html